Surface Engineering Towards Boosted Dielectric Properties for High-Temperature Polymers Under Electrical Extremes

Polymer-thin films are critical dielectric materials for capacitive energy storage in power and electronic systems. The rapid development of wide bandgap semiconductors urgently calls for polymers that can attain high energy density and high charge-discharge efficiency at elevated temperatures. However, high-temperature polymers usually suffer from compromised dielectric breakdown strength and soaring conduction loss due to the intrinsic constraint between their bandgaps and thermal stability. In this work, we propose a facile and high throughput interface engineering technique utilizing nanocoatings formed by montmorillonite (MMT) nanoclays, which can serve as an out-of-the-box solution to bypass this constraint. The highly ordered MMT-based nanocoatings with layered structure can significantly block the excessive charge injection at high electric fields and dissipate the charge carriers along the in-plane direction. The MMT-coated PI films exhibit improved breakdown strength, suppressed conduction loss, and boosted charging-discharging efficiency. This work holds the promise of improving the dielectric properties of polymers through surface engineering, enabling their application at concurrent electrical and thermal extremes.